Annihilation

Review

Runtime: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Alex Garland

Quick Impressions:
Normally when a movie opens in February, a little flow chart kicks into gear in my mind. I ask 1) Is this movie for children? 2) Is it starring Drew Barrymore? 3) Is it related to Valentine’s Day, Black History month, or some other time sensitive occasion?

If “no” is the answer to all three questions, then I mentally travel down a little chute that leads me to a place of extreme suspicion. And that’s where I began my journey with Annihilation. If you ask me, there’s something odd about a movie with an A-list star released too late for the Oscars but too early for summer (or even spring break).

It looks compelling, but it must be kind of bad, I told myself.

Then I discovered that it was directed by the Ex Machina guy, and my reservations about the film lessened. After all, Ex Machina was good. At least, the second half was good. I missed the film at the theater, but came home from the park with a sleeping baby one day to find my parents already engrossed in the story. Soon I got drawn in, too, and, actually I’m amazed they didn’t kick me out of the living room because I couldn’t seem to help incessantly vocalizing my suspicions about every character. I didn’t know what was going on or what any of their names were, but I didn’t trust even one of them a single bit.

Anyway, when I learned Alex Garland was the director, I thought with relief, Oh so that’s why Annihilation is coming out in February. It’s probably just extremely weird.

And it is.

I liked it, though. Of course, the score was a little bit like being murdered by deranged violinists while your head is stuck in a beehive. (Seriously, near the end of the film, the music became so loud and abrasive that I honestly still am not sure if the theater speaker nearest us was shorting out or if the movie is supposed to sound that way.) But there’s no denying that Annihilation has a distinctive sound.

The Good:
There’s a lot to praise in Annihilation. First of all, the film is worth seeing just for Natalie Portman’s commanding lead performance. This sounds like a ridiculous claim given the strength of her body of work, but I actually think this may be the best performance I’ve ever seen Portman give. Part of what impresses me so much here is that she is capably carrying the entire movie.

And that’s another point in Annihilation‘s favor. It’s a cerebral, mind-bending action movie anchored by a woman featuring supporting characters who are nearly all female. I have nothing against male actors, but this is just such a rarity. Imagine an Alien movie in which every character accompanying Ridley is also female (female as in an adult, human woman). It was ground-breaking enough to have a franchise like Alien built around a female protagonist, but in Annihilation, they’re all women. Portman has been very outspoken lately about better parts for women with equal pay and recognition, and with work like this, she demonstrates that she’s genuinely invested in effecting change in the industry.

Want to know what’s best about this gender-flipped band of adventurers? At first, I didn’t notice. I was so invested in trying to figure out what would happen that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize what actually was happening. At first, I just assumed that the female scouting party was one small component of a larger narrative, and then suddenly it hit me, No wait! This is the story. The main portion of this movie centers on a party of adventurers, and this time, they’re all girls! It was done with so little fanfare. It was just suddenly happening. My experience of it mimicked the disorienting beginning of their experience inside the shimmer.

The women all have such fantastic chemistry, too. I loved the entire team, but especially Jennifer Jason Leigh. She makes Ventress so weirdly compelling. (Hard not to think of Star Wars while watching this film, by the way.) There’s this unhinged flatness to her line delivery that could be annoying but somehow fits the character perfectly. She always seems to be acting out of a weird desperation that disguises itself as near apathy.

I also really liked Gina Rodriguez. Her Anya Thorensen probably would have gotten farther with me than she did with Lena since she exudes such a welcome, welcoming confidence. And she plays her big moment with her captive audience just brilliantly, a great perfomance from somebody who’s not even the star.

As Josie, Tessa Thompson is 180 degrees different than the character she plays in Thor: Ragnarok, scoring points with me for versatility.

And Tuva Novotny gives Cass Sheppard such unsettlingly eerie undertones. I kept thinking, I want to like her, but what if she’s on the verge of a dangerous breakdown? She’s too eager to show that she’s friendly. I don’t trust her at all. She’s probably dangerous. Seriously, for no good reason I mistrusted her so much that you’d think she were a character in Ex Machina.

They’re a wonderful ensemble and play well off each other. And of course, once you realize that their adventure is the movie and it’s a film in that subgenre (which I was oddly slow to do), then you start to wonder, “Okay, which one will die first? Which one will go crazy?” And none of this stuff happens in an obvious, predictable way.

The only significant male characters in the movie (played by Benedict Wong, David Gyasi, and Oscar Isaac) all give excellent performances, too, especially Isaac who has the most to do.

Watching the movie made me think quite a lot about the Aliens franchise, and I also kept getting a Heart of Darkness vibe. I haven’t read Conrad’s novel recently enough to make any specific comparisons, but I wouldn’t want to spoil the plot of the movie, anyway.

The ending is definitely mind-bending, but it’s also exactly the kind of thing we’re expecting. Probably the film’s cleverest trick is to bait us with the mystery of what’s in the shimmer and how they got out when the real question (the mystery the story explores and (partially) resolves) is why they went in.

My husband and I left the theater with a lot of questions, questions we will probably take with us to our graves, still unanswered (if we remember them that long). We had a few different ideas about how to interpret some of the more opaque aspects of the ending. (When all else fails, I find the plot makes a lot of sense if you view it as a metaphor for the trauma the characters are processing. On a literal level, some things are a bit confusing, but it’s extremely easy to find deeper meaning in Annihilation.)

Obviously I won’t say anything that spoils the ending here, but for us the two biggest takeaways were as follows: 1) Darwinism and biological imperative give the neatest explanation for the survival of any organism. 2) Maybe the Other is incomprehensible to us, but so is the familiar. We might not understand the motives of mysterious agents, but we don’t completely understand our own motives either. Often biological impulses govern us that we cannot explain in words.  (Forgive me for being a bit vague.  I’m trying not to spoil concrete details of the plot.)


Best Scene:
For whatever reason, more often than not, Natalie Portman has seemed awkward to me in scenes of intimacy and romance, but she’s got some fantastic love/sex scenes in this film.  I’m not suggesting that these scenes offer some kind of erotic experience for the viewer.  What I’m saying is, if two characters are supposed to be intimate, the audience needs to be shown, not told.  Telling us that people are close does no good if we get a different impression by watching them together.

One such scene with Oscar Isaac is a particular standout. He and Portman have amazing chemistry.  Everything between them feels so real and natural which is absolutely essential for us to see and to compare with later scenes.

Best Scene Visually:
Annihilation gives us so much to look at. Everything inside the shimmer is bizarre and beautiful. Josie’s final scene I find really compelling and lovely besides being deeply symbolic.

But what’s truly captivating is Lena’s final, desperate struggle for freedom which plays out like some kind of grotesque ballet choreographed by Guillermo del Toro.  (It’s really more of an interpretive dance. I’m sure I’m just thinking of ballet because it’s Natalie Portman).

Of course, it’s also at this point that Annihilation becomes truly weird/confusing/open to interpretation. But Portman really sells it, which struck me as particularly impressive since it must be partially CGI. Her green screen acting has come a long way since the Star Wars prequels.  Honestly, again and again, I was so impressed by the ability of Natalie Portman’s face to carry this entire movie.  There were times when I thought, I don’t know about this, and then I countered, But Natalie Portman’s face, though…

Portman’s beauty is no secret.  She has a face especially suited to cinema.  But what I’m actually talking about here is her acting.  The performance she’s giving here is so strong that just watching the reactions on her face gives us a reason to continue to be invested in the story, even when certain elements are uncomfortably baffling.

Best Action Sequence:
Normally I see bears and think about how much I wish I could have one or be one. This one just really freaks me out. The way it comes after them using a clever ruse is like something out of a fairy tale (though I don’t think the bear here is actually trying to be clever).

Funniest Scene:
It’s not actually a funny scene, but many people in the audience laughed out loud when Portman’s character affirmed her dislike for a certain person.  It’s nice that she is allowed to say what she thinks rather than have her feelings expressed for her.  It’s a great moment.

The Negatives:

At a certain point, Annihilation began to remind me of Sunshine, not because of a direct comparison between plot elements.  It’s just that you watch and think, This is quite good.  I have so many questions.  And then suddenly, you’re just like, What?

After the film, my husband and I agreed that the weird ending had delivered exactly what we had expected going in.  I mean, what else can a movie of this nature do?  It asks the kinds of questions that have no easy answers, and it would be pretty hard to deliver something other than what the audience vaguely expects from the lighthouse moment.  From a certain point of view, you could say that this movie never promises to explain anything, and then it really doesn’t.  I don’t mean that it has no ending and gives no explanation.  It’s more that the answers matter less than why we (and the characters) are seeking those answers.
It’s a very philosophical film, one that should be great for starting conversations after the movie with people who genuinely love to discuss ideas.  In a way, it’s similar to the movie Arrival (a film that more successfully makes its ending feel meaningful, but really works in a similar way).  In Arrival, the protagonist is a linguist, so the answer lies in how language works.  In Annihilation, the protagonist is a biologist, so the answer lies in how biology works.  The difference is, Arrival pointedly spells out its ending, but in Annihilation, we’re left to work out the most powerful parts for ourselves.
Some people might complain that a movie so focused on women is written by a man adapting the work of another man.  But I won’t make that complaint.  As a writer myself, I tend to believe that a good writer can create authentic characters of any gender.  (That’s not always what happens, but it can happen.)
The strongest thing I can say against Annihilation is that if you don’t like it, as it drags on and on, you really won’t like it.  There’s a certain trippy weirdness to the entire thing that the audience just has to accept.  But watching the movie for just a few minutes should give you a clear idea of the type of film it is, and it’s never going to be any other type of film.  Some people don’t like philosophical mind-benders, particularly when they don’t offer any easy and neat solutions.  And that’s what this is, ultimately.  So if you don’t like that, then you probably won’t like Annihilation–unless Natalie Portman’s face saves it for you, which is a distinct possibility.  She’s really good in this role.

Overall:
Annihilation is gripping and easily lures the audience to watch.  What it ultimately reveals to us is less important than what we learn ourselves by watching it.  Natalie Portman gives a killer performance, capably carrying the whole movie, and the rest of her scouting party are captivating, too, as is Oscar Isaac.  I’m not sure that I’m a fan of the bee-attack/static score, but it undeniably helps to create a certain ambiance.  So though I’m not likely to buy the soundtrack and play it endlessly in my car, I probably would watch the movie again.  In fact, I’d like to watch it again after seeing the ending to make sure I have certain details straight.  If you liked Ex Machina, then you’ll probably like this, too.  And if you didn’t like Ex Machina, you still might like Annihilation if you’re a fan of Natalie Portman.
Back to Top